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For decades, children have enjoyed singing about the little donkey which is said to have carried the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem.   The calendar features Lord Nelson forced to wear a life jacket But one group of young singers was ordered to change the traditional lyrics of the Christmas song - because they were said to be "too religious".Instead of "Little donkey, carry Mary safely on her way", the youngsters were told to sing "carry Lucy" for fear of offending non-Christians. The incident, at the school's Christmas concert, appears on a new calendar alongside 11 other examples of extreme political...

Scott Hahn on Our Lady The following is the transcript of Scott Hahn's audio and video tape presentation, "Mary: Holy Mother" as it appears in the "Catholic Adult Education on Video Program" with Scott and Kimberly Hahn. This morning we want to focus on Mary and the Marian doctrines and devotions of the Catholic Church to see where in scripture do we see, not necessarily logical demonstrations that are brought forth from proof texts that kind of force the mind against the will to give in and to acquiesce in these beliefs, but where do we find in scripture the...

Mary, the Blessed Virgin by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. Mary, the Blessed Virgin, mother of Jesus Christ and, according to Roman Catholic theology, the greatest of the Christian saints. The title “Mary” occurs only once in the Old Testament as the name of Moses’ sister (Exodus 15:20). Its etymology has been variously traced to mean beautiful, bitter, rebellion, illuminatrix, lady, and beloved of God. Scholars prefer the last meaning, derived from the Egyptian, which may be explained by the four centuries’ sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. Life. The Gospel account of Mary's life begins with the appearance of...

Folks, recently I was perusing some publications stored in the Association of Hebrew Catholic's website, when I stumbled upon the Hail Mary in Hebrew. As I read through the transliteration I was struck by its inner rhythm and coherence. It's poetic and beautiful. It is, in fact, probably as close as we are going to get to what the Archangel Gabriel actually said to the Blessed Mother – provided he didn't speak to her in Aramaic, which he probably did. Here's the prayer in Hebrew: Here's the transliteration:Shalom lakh Miryam habtulah hakdoshah m'leah khesed. Elohim imekh. At m'vorekhet beyn kol...

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE A Message from Heaven Gave us the Only Key to World Peace The message was confirmed by the stupendous Miracle of the Sun witnessed by 70,000 people. God performed this miracle so that we would believe the Message and act on it before it is too late. Otherwise "various nations will be annihilated", perhaps even our own. At Fatima Pope John Paul II warned of the "almost apocalyptic menaces looming over the nations." Since then wars, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, tsunamis, the threat of global pandemics, and Russia's deployment of new "defense-proof" nuclear missiles have only...

Why do Catholics call Mary the Ark of the New Covenant? Answering that question will take us on a journey through the Old and New Testaments.For example, Luke wove some marvelous things into his Gospel that only a knowledgeable Jew would have understood — a Jew who knew Jewish Scripture and had eyes to see and ears to hear. One of the things he would have understood is typology. So what is typology? We all know that the Old Testament is full of stories, people, and historical events. A type is a person, thing, or event in the Old Testament...

Who Are You, Immaculate Conception?Mary, mother of GodFr. [now Saint Maximilian] Kolbe asked this question during a meditation on February 17 1941, the same day he was arrested, just before he left for the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he would die on August 15. Immaculate Conception : these very words crossed the lips of the Immaculate herself. So they must show just how important they were in describing who she is. Fr Kolbe remembered Mary’s declaration to Bernadette on March 25 1858. Fr Peyramale, the parish priest of Lourdes, had been astonished by the name Our Lady gave to...

  The Miracle of The Sun   October 13, 1917(1) Here are briefly the facts; starting from the day after the events, by a reporter who cannotpossibly be accused of partiality in this matter and for a good reason! We refer to Avelino deAlmeida, the chief editor of "O Seculo," the large "liberal" anticlerical and masonic daily ofLisbon. He writes, "From the road, where the carriages were crowded together and where hundreds of persons hadstayed for want of sufficient courage to advance across the muddy ground, we saw the hugecrowd turn towards the sun which appeared at its zenith,...

http://www.rc.net/sacramento/cfl/protest.htmPlease pass on this message to others.Protest immodest blasphemy against the Blessed Virgin Mary. Please submit a short, to the point communication (such as "Remove the immodest statue portraying the Blessed Virgin Mary in a translucent gown from Church of the Resurrection parish in Solon, Ohio"). E-mail, call, fax or write: Bishop Anthony Pilla Diocese of Cleveland 1027 Superior Ave. Cleveland, Ohio 44114 Phone (216) 696-6525 / (800) 869-6525 FAX (216) 696-6547 "Bishop Anthony Pilla" <info@dioceseofcleveland.org> To see a sample letter, eitherclick here, orright click here. and "Save Target As …" a file you can find. Open in Word, WordPerfect,...

Miraculous? Pilgrims flock to Sterling Heights home to see Virgin Mary's bowed head, photos. PUBLISHED: October 1, 2005 By Gordon Wilczynski Macomb Daily staff Writer Macomb Daily staff photo by Craig Gaffield Pilgrims come to see a statue of the Virgin Mary on the front lawn of a Sterling Heights home Friday. The unexpected death of a beloved Sterling Heights man has triggered what some people are calling a religious miracle, attracting hundreds of visitors in recent weeks. The family of the deceased believes the death of Ghassan Pattah, 39, on Aug. 29, has spawned a spiritual message from the...

IN THE two days since Lisa Petrachkova was born, Russia’s population has dropped by an estimated 2,000 people. By the time she is one, more than 200,000 Russians will have died of unnatural causes; almost seven times the estimated civilian deaths in Iraq since the war began. By her 50th birthday, Russia’s population could have halved, based on current trends. Little does she know it as she lies next to her mother, Masha, in a Moscow maternity ward, but Lisa is on the front line of a national fight for survival. By Russian standards, she is lucky to have made...

Union of Orthodox Citizens appeals to Alexy II to break all relations with the Vatican and start missionary work in Europe and America Moscow, August 23, Interfax - As the Uniates have become more active in Ukraine the Orthodox public have appealed to Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia to end all relations with the Roman Catholic Church and begin missionary work in Europe and America. ‘It is necessary to accept in the fold of the Orthodox Church all the Old Catholic communities who wish to join it, to establish a Russian Orthodox school for training Latin-rite clergy for...

Question 37- Did Sr. Lucia Really Deny that the 1984 Consecration was Valid? Mr. Sungenis, "In any case, why is Bertone suddenly considering Sr. Lucia an expert witness and interpreter of the consecration considering the fact that on five separate instances between 1984 and 1989 Sr. Lucia is documented as stating that the 1984 consecration DID NOT fulfill Our Lady’s 1929 request to consecrate the nation of Russia?" I see the claim made many times but no one ever offers any proof of it. Can you give a first-hand source? R. Sungenis: Here is the excerpt from my paper on...

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 14, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The Fatima secret has been totally revealed by the Vatican, and Russia has already been consecrated as Mary requested, confirmed Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart. The witness of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin of Fatima made this statement to the then secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, on Nov. 17, 2001, contradicting those who say that the Church still has secrets about the Marian apparition. The content of the interview held between the Vatican representative and Sister Lucia in the convent of...

The story of Lourdes, where Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous, is rich in lessons for us. One lesson is about suffering. We see in Lourdes two attitudes of Divine Providence with regard to human suffering that can appear to be contradictory. At Lourdes, Our Lady works many miracles of body and soul for the benefit of souls. On one hand, the thing that attracts the most attention at Lourdes is that Our Lady has pity on men, hears their requests, and works miracles to free them from the pain and illnesses they suffer. Also, Our Lady has pity...

Did you feel your heart beating in your throat as the crowd closed in, the swolen passover crowd, some jeering, some just strangers trying to see what was happening, blocking your access, blocking your view, blocking you. Did you struggle through the backways to catch up, the need to be there like panic burning in your heart, pulling you and the others like a magnet, your son, your light your life. And when you finally caught up, and saw him, sprawled out on the road, rough hands trying to yank him upright, bloody, beaten, exhausted, muscles trembling in their fatigue,...

For those in need of special graces, one secure way to obtain them is the Miraculous Medal. As the name implies, devotees experience nothing short of miracles when they have recourse to this great treasure of the Church. The America Needs Fatima campaign has just launched a nationwide drive called Miracles for America to get free Miraculous Medals and novena cards in hands of tens of thousands of Americans. Campaign director Robert E. Ritchie hopes to distribute 200,000 blessed medals soon. The medal originated in 1830 when Our Lady appeared to Saint Catherine Laboure. This devout religious was entrusted with...

OUR LADY AND ISLAM: HEAVEN’S PEACE PLAN     Fr Ladis J. Cizik, Blue Army National Executive Director IslamIslam is an Arabic word that can be defined as "to make peace." Islam is the religion founded by Mohammed, which considers the Koran as its holy book. In addition, Islam accepts the New Testament of the Christians and the Old Testament of the Jews as Divinely inspired works. Followers of Islam are known as Muslims (also: Moors, Turks, and Moslems) and, just as Jews and Christians, believe in only one God. Yet, over the centuries, Muslims have engaged in tremendous wars with...

                       December 8, 2004 O Mary Conceived Without Sin, Pray For Us Who Have Recourse to Thee by Thomas A. Droleskey Words are so inadequate to communicate the beauty of the great feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception. As we begin the second week of Advent, the Church gives us a chance to meditate upon the great mystery of God 's Redemptive Love as He fashioned His own Mother in the womb of her Mother Saint Ann. Yes, as we continue to use Advent to reflect on the many comings of Christ in our lives--as well as His...

Letter to Tradition in Action I am a prisoner who would like to say thank you to Our Lady of Good Success. Hollywood has a tendency to put all prisoners in the same category. There are those who are con artists, manipulators, deceivers, etc… Then there are those who fall through the cracks and are really innocent yet portrayed as guilty. They just released an inmate who was here 16 years before a witness who testified against him came forward and told the truth. Imagine that - 16 years for a crime one didn’t ever do. Not a good feeling....

September 18, 2004 Our Mother of Sorrows by Thomas A. DroleskeyThis past Wednesday, September 15, 2004, was the feast of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady. Only a handful of genuine mystics have been able to comprehend fully the depth of the pain and sorrow that pierced Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart during her life. Most of us erring sinners, while relying upon her maternal intercession as her consecrated slaves, do not meditate too often or too deeply on the sufferings Our Lady endured as her Divine Son bore the weight and the horror of our sins to...

THE HAIL MARY OF OUR SORROWFUL MOTHER Hail Mary, full of sorrows, the Crucified is with thee; tearful art thou amongst women, and tearful is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of the Crucified, give tears to us, Crucifiers of thy Son, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. AN ACT OF CONTRITION Virgin most afflicted, how ungrateful have I been in the past to my God, in return for all His benefits. Now, I repent in bitterness of heart, humbly asking pardon for the offence done to His infinite goodness, and resolved by the...

In a previous book, ("She who is"), Elizabeth Johnson helped us gain some insight into the mystery of God seen from a feminist standpoint. She tried to emphasize the feminine in God. She focused on God as "Wisdom Spirit" which is perhaps the most abstract of our concepts of the Divine. In the present book, so to speak, she comes back down to earth by focusing on Mary, who was intimately linked to the Spirit and yet remains far more accessible to us humans. Mary can be named, and quite naturally be represented as a woman. She is a definitely...

THE controversial Mel Gibson film 'The Passion of the Christ' has been dismissed by the Evangelical Protestant Society as a 'Catholic' interpretation of events which "does not present the Gospel". Wallace Thompson, secretary of the Evangelical Protestant Society, said the film displayed "an un-Biblical fixation on Mary, the mother of Jesus. None of this should surprise us, for both Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel, who plays the part of Christ, are enthusiastic devotees of the traditional teachings of the Church of Rome." He further claims that Mel Gibson "belongs to an ultra-conservative Catholic group which does not recognise the reforms...

Introduction Nestled in a mountain pass, high in the Alps of southern France, there is a most amazing place that, like the fictitious Shangri-La, is hidden away from the rest of the world and is truly unlike anything one's ever seen. The place is a picturesque mountain hamlet that is as quaint as it is supremely restful, and as serene as it is breathtakingly beautiful. A mere handful of tiny dwellings and a perfectly charming little inn surround a basilica on a hill that overlooks a magnificent panoramic view of an immense valley that lies peacefully between the snowcapped peaks...

What a sick bunch of people! This happened to my local church.

The Little Office of The Blessed Virgin Mary: Time Sanctified Pat Doyne GUEST COLUMNIST, Canada Because King Solomon said: “The just man shall fall seven times (a day),” the Old Testament Jews divided the day into seven parts. They rose to praise God in the night and at daybreak (Matins) and (Lauds), (twice during the morning) at Prime and Terce; they prayed at noon (Sext); at the ninth hour, 3 o’clock (None); in the evening (Vespers) and before retiring (Compline). Each of the sections takes about five to ten minutes, consisting of psalms, Bible readings and prayers appropriate to the...

"When the atom bomb destroyed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945," notes a website, "it somehow spared a building only eight blocks away from ground zero. In it were living eight Jesuits who were unharmed by the blast, heat, and radiation. Some 200 scientists have examined the priests, trying to determine why they were unhurt. Speaking on American TV, the German Jesuit Father Hubert Schiffer gave the answer: 'In that house, the Rosary was prayed every day. In that house we were living the message of Fatima,' he said." Actually, it was even more dramatic than that. Let's hear Father Schiffer's...

The Annunciation And was it true, The stranger standing so, And saying things that lifted her in two, And put her back before the world's beginning?Her eyes filled slowly with the morning glow. Her drowsy ear drank in a first sweet dubious bird. Her cheek against the pillow woke and stirred To gales enriched by passage over dew, And friendly fields and slopes of Galilee Arose in tremulous intermixture with her dreams, Till she remembered suddenly... Although the morning beams Came spilling in the gradual rubric known to every day, And hills stood ruinous, as an eclipse, Against the softly...

SIEVERNICH. More and more visitors are coming to the village church of St. John the Baptist in Sievernich. Not waves of pilgrims yet, but in Sievernich, a district of Vettweiß in Voreifel near Bonn, the influx of visitors is increasing. The village has 460 residents, about 360 of whom are Roman Catholic. Like other visitors, I cross the churchyard where the gravel between the graves crunches beneath my feet as I search for the entrance. My eyes wander through the church. Just past the door on the left stands a Fatima Madonna. Candles lit by earlier visitors burn in...

Great Prophesied EventsThere are three great prophesied events coming from the Garabandal events, the Warning (Aviso in Spanish), the great Miracle and the conditional Chastisement which will come if the world does not change after the Warning and Miracle. The first of these three events to occur is the Warning. It will be seen in the sky and then felt interiorly by everyone on earth. No one will escape it. At a moment in the not too distant future, when the world is in the midst of a great turmoil, everything will be held in suspension. At that moment, everyone...